Networking can help get you the career you want by meeting the right people:

Find out what it's like at other companies

What's happening in an industry

Direct connections to people inside companies that could be customers, or you want to work at

Most jobs are never posted online, so you need to know people at the company you'd like to work at, which means networking is a key part to finding the role you want.

I used to be terrible at networking. It took a lot of practice to figure out how to do and, most importantly, not waste my time.

When you go to an event, any event, ask yourself why you're going. What's your goal? Is it to learn things? Meet people? Meet a specific person? It'll focus you while you're there.

LearningIf you're there to learn things, the talk will be useful, but so will the other attendees. For example, if you want to learn about clean energy software and you're at a cleanweb event, as other attendees

"Hi, I'm John. This is my first time at a cleanweb event. Have you been to their events before?"

Follow up: "I'm here to learn more about the industry. Are there other events or resources you recommend to learn more?"

Or - "What brings you to the event tonight?" is a great icebreaker.

Meeting people, or a specific personNo matter what type of person you're looking to meet, whether at a specific company or a specific individual. find the organizer. They're likely to know some of the people in the room and they can connect you to the right person, even to people who could be hiring.

If it's not the exact person you're looking for, that's ok. Have a conversation with them, and mention that you're at the event to meet "a person from X company" or "other people in product management", then they can point you in the right direction.

Meeting a speakerIf you're looking to meet the speaker at an event, do your research ahead of time. Know what they look like. Go up to them before the event, because afterward, there will be other people who want to talk to them. Be short with your conversation. Say why you want to connect with them, get their contact information, then follow up with them that night or the day after. Many people take the contact information of people and never follow up.

Getting out of a conversation/making the most of your timeDon't spend too much time with any one person. You'll know within a few minutes if the person you're talking with is someone you'd like to connect with. Options for ending a conversation:

"Is there anyone else here you recommend I talk with?"

"I'm going to get some more water/beverage. It was nice to meet you." Food and bathroom work as good exits as well.

If you're having a good conversation with someone and you'd like to continue it, suggest that you connect (exchange contact information) and have a phone call or get coffee with them.

A year ago, dressed in suffragette white and addressing a cheering, weeping convention, Hillary Clinton stood for possibility. Now she is a reminder of the limits women continue to confront — in politics and beyond.

More than 40 years after women began pouring into the workplace, only a handful have made it all the way to the top of corporate America. The percentage of chief executives of Fortune 500 companies who are women just passed 6 percent, creeping up (and occasionally dropping back) at a glacial pace.​Why don’t more women get that No. 1 job?

Is this your first time at Intersolar? Have no fear, here are three ways to make the most of the largest solar conference in California.

1. Show upTwitter and other social media channels will do no justice to the event. You have to be there, meeting people in person.

2. Walk the expo floorTrue, Intersolar is a conference with great educational sessions, but most of the excitment is on the expo floor. The expo is a multi-floor series of booths from solar companies. Most of the companies that have booths are hardware companies. If you're not in the market for a racking system, it would still be useful to know about racking systems.

Walk up to people at booths where you have no idea what the product is and ask them to tell you about the product. It's their job to tell you. Also ask them what they find interesting at Intersolar and if they recommend any other booths to go to.

3. Go to networking eventsThe conference and expo floor are great, but the networking is even better and more worth your time. Below is a list of networking events happening around Intersolar. Not really a networker? Here 's how you take the awkward moments out of networking.​

4. Follow upYou'll meet some interesting people. All will be for naught if you don't follow up and connect with them. If you don't immediatly have a follow up action, like getting coffee with them to have a deeper discussion around career or business, email them to say "It was nice to meet you. I look forward to seeing you at another solar event soon." and add them on LinkedIn. By doing this, you'll go above and beyond 95% of the people that person met at the conference.

Now get out there and enjoy Intersolar!

_____Can't get enough of solar? My friend Ravi and I host cleanweb events in the Bay Area and next week we're hosting a panel of solar software entrepreneurs to hear what they think about the current solar market and what it means for startups. Hope you can join us.

With all the events and links out there I was having a hard time keeping track of everything, so I’ve put it all in one place. If I’ve missed anything, use the contact form to let me know.

Happy networking!Elena

YC is hosing the Female Founders Conference on 6/29 in SF. If you can't make it in person, it will be live streamed here: femalefoundersconference.org/​YC also put together a great set of female founder profiles. Check them out here.

By Sloane MorganLinkedIn​Hey all you Clean Tech Enthusiasts out there! I've met some great clean energy companies over the past several weeks. They're doing great work to make the world a better place:

Check out Swell Energy. They are selling a bundled product of solar + storage they call EnergyShield, premium black panel solar generation and a compact lithium-ion storage cell in SCE, a Southern CA utility. SCE is innovating and picking up where the fossil fuel-powered grid leaves off. Swell offers financing and is leading on good CX with their one click application for state and federal incentives. As of August 2017, SCE commissioned Swell to bring the largest fleet of home batteries (they are Tesla certified installer) the world has ever seen, effectively creating a “smart” grid that will help solve major supply issues facing Southern California. I want this in PGE territory! I don’t want my solar to go offline if the grid goes out (which is what would happen to me —and most other solar customers — under my current grid tied solar system). This Swell + SCE project is our future.

I’m also impressed by Drift, an online marketplace that allows consumers to buy energy at the lowest available price whether directly from the local grid, the wind farm outside of town, or even their neighbor’s solar panels. Drift is focusing on customers in New York City, and it takes just minutes to make the switch to cleaner power. Founders were in a band together before they started their first company, and now showing their many talents by helping customers save money on energy costs by rethinking the supply chain paying.

Lastly, the folks at Zero Mass Water are magicians. Their product is a solar system that pulls water out of air. Millions of people on the planet need this product! Water vapor is extracted as pure water & is mineralized for taste. Without pipes or plastic chemicals, the water is of the highest quality without the vulnerability of infrastructure. Easy to purchase systems are customizable to match your family/garden needs. These folks are working out of the University of Arizona and have created a cool product with endless opportunity for ‘democratizing’ the ownership of clean water.

I've had more than a few people ask me about how to get into clean energy. They're tired of woking at a company that isn't meaningful.

Good news, it's easy to get into clean energy!

Clean energy companies are just like other companies, they need business and technical people. If you know operations, marketing, finance, engineering (software and others), HR, clean energy companies will want to hire you. Clean energy companies need professional s that bring their expertise from other industries into clean energy.

You can apply for open job descriptions, but it's best to meet a few people in the energy industry so they can help connect you to the right hiring manager. The best way to meet people in the industry you want to work in is by going to events. To overcome

A few easy questions to start and end a conversation Networking is daunting when you don’t know where to start. The most important think is to be curious about the people you meet. Perhaps they aren’t the perfect connection, but maybe they know a restaurant you should try in a new part of town or they know someone else that could be of help to you. There are some basic questions you can use to get over the first conversation at an event. Everyone else is there to network as well, but it’s hard to make the first move. I usually scope the whole room, then make it to the bar or food area – you can always use a drink or appetizer menu as an icebreaker, then dive into more professional topics. My favorite way to start is:What brings you here tonight? Ask them if they’ve been to an event like this before: Example Women 2.0Have you been at a Women 2.0 event before? To keep it going…How are you involved in tech? Do you have a startup?Are you new to the area? (This way you get their history) The conversation will take off and you'll want to hang out, or if you need an exit or if the conversation has a lull.Have you met any other interesting people here tonight? They’ll point you in the direction of someone interesting or you’ll have a way out of the conversation.“….Great, I'd love to check in with them. Thank you for pointing them out to me. It was very nice to meet you.” And you walk away. -or-"Ok, I'm going to see who else I can connect with here. It was very nice to meet you.” And you walk away. There you have it. Go try it out!

There is a lot of noise on the web when it comes to finding a fulfilling job. On top of that, most jobs aren't static. My "job" at UtilityAPI has drastically changed a few times now. I use LinkedIn to find articles about moving up in jobs and more of the mechanics of the job search. I also like Levo League.

Career and job are fluid - no one expects to have one job their whole life. Figuring out where you are and where you want to go is necessary on an ongoing basis. That's where events come in.

Go to an event that's outside of your comfort zone so you're exposed to new ideas. Attend an industry event to find out what's coming around the corner. Does this sound awkward to you? No problem. Here is how I took awkward out of networking. How do you find events? I curate /aggregate a list of tech, clean energy, and career development events in the Bay Area and send it out in a newsletter on Mondays. Subscribe here.